1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to computer and telecommunications networking and collaboration middleware, where a set of two or more users or user devices are engaged in synchronous or asynchronous communication with one another. The present invention is specifically targeted towards the set of application scenarios, where this group of users is dynamically chosen based on certain criteria on the state of the users, and where the users can interact or collaborate with members of the group using an identifier that identifies this dynamic group. In particular, the membership of this group changes dynamically based on changes to the state of the users. The invention could be used in many collaborative scenarios, for example in healthcare, emergency response or corporate workflows, where the explicit identity of the individuals involved in some collaborative association is not important. Rather, it is required that certain dynamic attributes (such as the location or availability) associated with the individuals possess values appropriate to the task at hand. The selection of the individual users or devices then depends upon dynamically resolving who satisfies the specified criteria.
2. Background Description
Task-oriented collaboration between a group of users demonstrates a basic use of any telecommunications or computing network. This type of collaboration includes activities such as audio or video conferencing (using either circuit-switched or packet-based networks), use of collaborative software such as electronic whiteboards, or use of dynamically created repositories or databases (such as Lotus Notes Teamrooms). Current implementations of such collaborative or multi-party communication are oriented towards establishing a logical association between a well-defined set of people, whose identities are explicitly indicated to the collaboration-enabling application or utility at the beginning of the association. In such cases, the explicitly identified members of the logical group are informed of the means of interacting with other members of the group using off-line mechanisms (e.g., after an 800 number is established for a teleconference, the specified list of participants is then notified via an email). Current systems are thus geared for:
1. manually forming or identifying the group of people who join a collaborative association (e.g., email mailing lists, LotusNotes teamrooms) or,
2. specifying a set of relatively static attributes as criteria that the members of the group must satisfy (all users whose last names begin with “Z”) to be a part of the collaborative association. Once the collaborative association is formed, the group membership does not change, except without explicit manual intervention.